


to stand outside your virtue

by SomeEnchantedEve



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Cunnilingus, F/M, Falling In Love, Infidelity, Preseries, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2012-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 22:39:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeEnchantedEve/pseuds/SomeEnchantedEve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the <a href="http://asoiafkinkmeme.livejournal.com">asoiafkinkmeme</a>: </p><p>Prompt: AU - Brandon lives and marries Catelyn as he is meant to. However, things are not as she imagined they would be (slutty!Brandon is canon, my friends!) and she seeks solace in his younger brother.</p><p> </p><p>"Eddard Stark is less handsome than his older brother, far more serious and somber, and together they burn far less brightly than the charming young lord of Winterfell and whichever lady he honors with his attentions that night. "</p>
            </blockquote>





	to stand outside your virtue

**Author's Note:**

> For river_soul, who is my head!canon twin 4EVA. <3
> 
> I cannot believe how this COMMENT KINK MEME fic ended up so long - I JUST HAVE A LOT OF NED/CAT FEELINGS. XD

Like so many before her (and to come after her), Brandon’s passion for her burns like a wildfire in the godswood – passionate, consuming, and then suddenly gone leaving only ashes in the wake. 

Their first few moons together are heady, decadent; he courts her as sweetly as he ever did in Riverrun and she thinks that the idea of having a wife amuses him – it is easy, and she is young and eager to please, to love and be loved. He brings her blue winter roses ( _to match your eyes, my lady_ ), praises the beauty of the red in her hair, the elegance of her hands, and she is overwhelmed by the attentions of the handsome young lord, her _husband_ , she thinks, and the thought brings a giddiness of infatuation that sends her nerve endings on fire. His attentions make the barren wasteland that is now her home seem less strange, less cold, and when it fades like the bloom on her flowers she wonders for a moment if the Stark words are correct, if winter is coming and sooner than they thought.

As time passes she soon learns that Brandon Stark enjoys the hunt, the chase, the courting and the bedding, and once conquered he moves on quickly to a new quarry, and such is the case for his lady wife. The romanticisms turn to distraction and polite distance, the roses in the vase die, and her husband’s eye roves for a new challenge (and he finds it, time and time again). He mislikes familiarity in his women, there is a wildness to him that seeks the new and illusive ( _a fresh kill_ she thinks when she is feeling particularly vindictive). 

He is not cruel to her and he still does his duty to her in hopes of soon making a child, but she sees with bitter clarity that the excitement is gone for him; she was too easily won, and now she is always there, a constant rather than fading into the background as his other conquests do when he bores of them, the dutiful legs he can fall between if his wooing is unsuccessful. She should be content, she knows, she has never been the romantic that her sister is and yet she cannot help the part of her that had wished for more than simply duty, and had thought it in her grasp when she first arrived to the north. 

It is not merely that he takes other girls to his bed; were he discreet, she would turn a blind eye – he has always been passionate. But it is the elaborate displays, the blatant courting, that he forgoes her own bed to lie with others, that makes her feel cast aside. 

Winterfell is cold and strange to her, and she loses herself in new ways each day. The servants and guards are kind but wary; she is a summer southron girl and they do not believe there is steel under her skin and wait for her to blow away on a winter gust of wind. The castle is under Brandon’s skin and he belongs to it in a way that she shall never match, he runs through the godswood like a child still, furrows his brow and frowns when she asks to move her chambers because they are frigid despite how high she stokes the fire. (He complies but he does not understand, she knows, _I do not know why you fuss so,_ he had said, and she knew that he did not mean it as a cruelty, he simply did not _know_. _Lyanna was never troubled by the cold._ )

(In her darker moments she thinks she has been sent here to die, in the snow, in a place where it is always winter.)

They host often in Winterfell, Brandon enjoys the pageantry and exuberance of a feast, and his bannermen and honored guests enjoy the bountiful food and drink. They come from the north mostly, the south sometimes, and his two brothers always, an excuse to visit the castle that will always be their home despite the holdfasts they hold in their lord brother’s name. 

If she dances, more often than not it is with her solemn-faced good brother, who will politely offer his hand. (She knows that Eddard is not fond of dancing, and he has no great skill at it like Brandon does, and she knows that he asks her out of pity and she does not know whether to be bitter at that or relieved that she is spared the embarrassment of sitting on the dais alone watching her husband twirl dark-haired girls beneath her eyes.) 

Eddard Stark is less handsome than his older brother, far more serious and somber, and together they burn far less brightly than the charming young lord of Winterfell and whichever lady he honors with his attentions that night. Catelyn watches him, as everyone watches him, laughing, sparkling, a vision of everything young and beautiful and new, and wonders if it is her destiny to always be outside of that grand sight.

She knows that it is her cup to bear, that other girls would be happy of such a high match and gladly turn their eye to Brandon’s disappearances, but she grows to hate the feasts because she knows, even before the first course is served, that she will spend that night alone, that Brandon will find something shiny and bright to warm his bed and she wonders if there was anything she could have done, back in the beginning, to stop them from ending up here. 

“Take a cup of wine with me,” she suggests to Eddard at the end of one feast, when Brandon’s guests have retired (and naturally so has Brandon himself) and they are the only two left in the hall, suddenly desperate to forestall arriving to a lonely bed and empty room. She does not know why she asks him, but she suspects it is because he is the only one left, and because she knows he is kind enough to ignore the sadness of the request.

“If you wish, my lady” he answers neutrally, and it is a request as a good sister, not a command as the lady of the castle, but she bites her tongue against the correction so that he may not withdraw his assent. She gestures for the serving maid to fill their cups with bitter Dornish red, and they sit together in the quiet hall (she wonders how silence can be so deafening and is glad that she does not endure it alone). 

And so begins a pattern on those nights that Brandon flings open the doors to Winterfell and welcomes all in. 

It starts as a distraction, a way to forget the empty bed that awaits her (to forget _why_ it awaits her), the wine warming her and lulling her into an easy sleep, Eddard (Ned, he tells her to call him, he has always been called Ned) a quiet companion but in a way that does not set her ill at ease. It is enough to have him there, to have _anyone_ there, sometimes silent but always _present_ , and she does not feel quite as alone in a castle that is not yet her home, may _never_ be her home.

But it becomes more than distraction as time passes and he begins to speak, begins to tell her about the castle, about the north, about the history of the Kings of Winter, and she drinks down the information as eagerly as she swallows the wine. They are things Brandon does not bother to speak of to her, too innate for him to think of them as strange and new to her; Ned traces the halls of Winterfell on her palm and she does not lose her way quite as often. She learns names and faces and histories, things her maesters and tutors in Riverrun could not have known and thus prepared her. She knows the houses and castles foresworn to Winterfell but he tells her their stories, which hold their oath sacred and which consider them words on wind. He begins to call for heated wine and it warms her in a way that she has not felt since first arriving to her new home.

He is not truly somber, she thinks, and feels guilty at her childish dismissal – he is merely reserved but it makes it all the more pleasing when he warms to her. Brandon’s winning grins and charming words are so freely given but when his brother gives her a smile, she feels as though it is something she has earned and something that not every lady in the room is privy to. She wonders how two brothers can be so incredibly different, one wild and one steady, one brash and the other thoughtful. 

Shamefully her dread when Brandon announces that they will be hosting guests fades, and later she begins to look forward to the feasts, to almost not mind glancing up to see Brandon slipping away, hardly discreet, to calling for wine and continuing her education (the books in the library, the warmest rooms and how many generations Old Nan has cared for Stark children – even he is not sure of that). Marrying Brandon made her Catelyn Stark but it is the knowledge that his brother shares that makes her finally feel as though one day she may be in truth the lady of Winterfell, and her heart aches in the gratitude of that. 

(And if it aches from something else, she does not acknowledge that.)

“You are too hard on yourself,” he admonishes lightly when she is frustrated with herself, at the things that fall through the cracks. “No one expects you to know as much as we who were born here.” His eyes are kind when he adds, “It is enough that you want to know, my lady,” and she wonders who it is enough for (because it is certainly not enough for Brandon). 

He asks her in turn about herself when he senses her head is swimming, and she is surprised that it seems to be in genuine interest rather than politeness. It is strangely comforting, to speak of Riverrun, describe the castle and the waters surrounding it, the godswood full of flowers and sun, of running with the mud between her toes with her siblings and even Petyr, of her dear uncle and his stories from wars far past. It is a reminder, that she is gone but her home is not, it is there, safe, waiting, and Ned laughs heartily when she speaks of the Blackfish teaching her and Lysa to defend themselves (and how they had demonstrated for their horrified father on Edmure, poor lad). 

(She realizes one night, when she has returned to empty chambers that still vex her but no longer haunt her, that her good brother knows more about her life and her family than her husband, who never thought to ask, whom had once waxed songs to her beauty but knew nothing of her heart. Would it bother Brandon, she wonders briefly, if he knew, but the answer comes her quickly – it would not.) 

She is drunk when she kisses him. 

Lysa and her husband Lord Jon Arryn visit Winterfell with a retinue from the Eyrie and Brandon sets sights on a girl from the Vale with thick golden hair and doe-like brown eyes. Her sister raises her eyebrows at the sight of the beautiful couple, at her sister sitting like stone next to her, and the pity in her eyes is enough to make Catelyn sick – for all that her sister’s marriage is unhappy, Lord Jon does not disrespect and disregard her so flagrantly, and he sits dutifully at his wife’s side. Ned sits on his other side, and the two laugh and recount stories from Ned’s time in the Eyrie being warded alongside Robert Baratheon, the misadventures the wild youth had led his more cautious friend into, and the quartet that they make seems to bewilder Lysa, as well. 

It is the first time Brandon’s dismissal truly aches, being shamed so in front of her own family, and she curls her fingers around the bottom of the chair and clings hard to the wood, feeling her face heat in embarrassment at her husband’s display. Lysa’s eyes are on her face when Ned asks Catelyn kindly if she should like to dance, and she shakes her head silently, lips pressed tightly together, and motions for more wine (and good and faithful as they are, the serving maids make sure to keep her cup quite full, especially once Brandon and the brown-eyed beauty disappear). 

She remains shock still until the hall empties and when she asks, as she often does, if he should like a cup of wine, Ned snorts in derision. He half-carries her back to her chambers, an arm heavy around her waist and hers behind his neck - the way, she thinks, they carry wounded soldiers and perhaps that is all that she is. She should be embarrassed, humiliated that she should make such a spectacle of herself, but the sour truth is that she is no spectacle at all because she is the invisible lady of Winterfell. ( _To be a spectacle_ , she thinks and she stumbles a bit over her own feet, _one must be first seen._ ) She stews silently as she remembers the sad look in his sister’s eyes, in Jon Arryn’s eyes, _pity_ , she thinks, and Catelyn has never wanted pity. 

She is sure Brandon did not notice, and if Ned has any admonishments he keeps them to himself. And when he walks her back to her room and she is closer to him at that moment, from sheer necessity, than she ever has been before, she has the sudden desperate desire to ask him why he cares for her more than his brother does. 

She does not ask and they arrive at her chambers. 

It happens as he opens the door for her, a forestalling hand on her arm to keep her steady; she grasps at his tunic, fingers curling over his heart, and when he turns his head with a furrowed brow to look at her she presses her mouth to his. It is everything she should not do, everything that she thought she was better than, everything that will shame her, shame him, shame her father and the Tully name ( _family duty honor_ but somehow it thuds distantly in her brain right now). He huffs against her mouth in surprise but she feels his fingers curve into her arm, his hand press cautiously to the small of her back and she eagerly puts her hand behind his neck to draw him closer, opening her mouth to his. 

It is different than kissing Brandon and that thrills her more than disconcerts her, urges her on more than it brings her to her senses. Brandon keeps himself clean shaven and his brother is bearded, and the hairs above his upper lip rasp against her mouth when she darts her tongue across his top lip, bristle against her fingers when she reaches up to cup his cheek. His touch is light, uncertain, but he is kissing her back, his tongue brushing against her teeth, sliding along her own, and the taste is different, his motions slower and more cautious than her husband’s. 

Her groan is low at the back of her throat and at the sound he pulls away suddenly, his hands going to her shoulders, and for a moment they look at each other, and _come inside_ is on her lips and she bites them back. Her face flushes red, at what she has done, at the desires of what she wishes to do, at the way he holds her from him, and she lowers her eyes (to be a spectacle you must first been seen, she thinks again, and Ned Stark is one of the few northerners that she thinks does see her, and the embarrassment is even worse and sobers her like a cold splash to the face). 

“My lady,” he starts and she winces, and somehow the thought that perhaps she misjudged and overstepped the bounds of his affections is worse than the idea that she kissed a man not her husband. “I trust you will feel more yourself in the morn.” 

Her cheeks burn and her lips feel dry; she whets them nervously and through lowered lashes sees his eyes fall to her mouth. “I am sorry if I…discomforted you.” 

“Catelyn,” he says and his voice is softer now, more urgent. “It is not…you are…” he trails off, and she thinks that for all that he is able to weave vivid tales of Winterfell, words are not a weapon he wields with confidence. “You are Brandon’s wife,” he finishes finally, quietly. “My brother and liege lord.”

She takes a step back and his hands fall from her shoulders. “I know,” she answers, and she thinks that of all of them, Brandon is the one who seems to have the hardest time remembering that Catelyn is his wife, and she wishes that for them, it would be so easy to forget. 

The next time he is in Winterfell, Ned seems surprised when she asks him to take a cup of wine at the end of the feast, but he assents as usual. She keeps a hand on her cup and a hand curled in her lap and eagerly listens to him describe the Burned Tower and how it became so, and there is relief in each mouthful that she did not lose the quiet companionship that she has come to rely on, the beacon that made the north a bit more bearable. She abandons the pretense to herself that it is still about the information he gives her, gratitude that he helps to understand the land she has come to. Tales of Winterfell would not quicken her pulse so, and she listens but somewhat less attentively, watching him instead, grateful for his steady, solid presence. 

The time comes, as she knew it would but sooner than she would have liked, when Brandon announces he has made a match for his brother, Lady Barbrey of House Ryswell, good friends to the Starks and Winterfell. And though she knew it would come, she is surprised at the choice – Lady Barbrey is lovely and dark-haired but with a fierce glint to her eyes, and Catelyn has seen her on Brandon’s arm more than once, a return companion. _She must be special indeed_ , she thinks bitterly, _a favorite companion if he would make her a match with his own brother._ She sees Ned, his face impassive (he always looks so serious though she knows now how his eyes can crinkle in amusement), and he offers his bride-to-be a small smile. She looks through him as though he were a pane of glass, her eyes on Brandon’s face ( _perhaps she loves him_ , Catelyn thinks, and it should make her angry but instead she just wishes to caution that that is a futile road, that she thinks his sister Lyanna is the only lady he has ever really loved and the rest just warm his bed). 

Lady Barbrey politely partners her betrothed for a dance, she knows her courtesies as any high born girl, but Catelyn notices that the black-haired beauty is soon missing from the hall, and with a quick critical scan, she sees that her husband is, as well. She can tell, from the grit of Ned’s jaw, that he has noticed too, and Catelyn bites back an absurd apology for Brandon, and instead watches as he leaves the hall early that night, and she closes the feast herself, alone, and she retires, alone. 

When the opens the door to the knock at her chambers, there is a storm in his face such as she had never before seen. She steps back, instinctively, at the turmoil there and he takes it as an invitation. He presses a jug of wine into her hands as he passes and she understands suddenly, sharply, and closes the door, and pours them each a cup. 

It feels more dangerous, more illicit in her chambers though they sit in chairs before the fire, and she watches the light cast shadows across his face as he stares at the flames and broods. He does not speak for a long time and she does not press, for all the nights that he allowed her silence and the comfort of another’s presence. 

To congratulate him seems wrong, for as badly as the evening had ended, and it would ring false anyway, so finally she offers, “She is very lovely. Lady Barbrey.” She means it as a compliment, to soothe, and she is surprised when the words leave the bitter taste of jealousy in her mouth. It is unfair, she knows, and there has never been a question that their odd relationship must be temporary only, and yet faced with the reality now leaves her feeling more alone than she did the first time Brandon’s eyes had slid past her to settle on someone new. 

His laugh is sharper than normal, and he drinks deeply from his cup, and she thinks that bitterness does not suit him. “Rodrik Ryswell badgered my father for years to make a match between our houses. I am certain that Brandon offered his apologies that it is only with a second son. And I am certain he is offering his apologies to Lady Barbrey as we speak, that she should have to settle for less than what she wants.” His face softens after the angry words leave his mouth, and he looks subdued, guilty, as though he has just remembered that he is speaking to Brandon’s wife (it should not please her, as it does, that sometimes he forgets). “I am sorry, my lady. I should not say such things.” 

Catelyn sighs heavily and stands to pour herself another cup, the jug of wine on a small table between them. “Do not apologize,” she says. “Let us not pretend that things are not as they are.” Her lips curl into a smile, almost mocking, but her words are still careful as she adds, “Lady Barbrey may one day think herself glad. Brandon…does not have a constant heart. I am sure even she knows that.” It is as close as she allows herself to get to the truth of the matter, the most polite and dutiful way she can describe it, her eyes on the cup wrapped in her hands. 

His hand curls around her wrist and when she looks up, he kisses her this time, hand cupping under her chin, and she cannot pretend to herself that there is not a part of her that has wished him to do so since she first kissed him (and longer, as long as she is being honest now). His mouth tastes tart and strong, like the Dornish red they have been imbibing in, and instinctively she pushes closer, fumbling to put down her cup and hand curving into the back of his hair. She draws his bottom lip between hers, skating her tongue along it, trying to taste _him_ instead. He groans against her mouth and the sound vibrates through her body and shoots down between her legs and greedily she tightens her grip, nipping at his lip now. 

His hands go to her hips and she tenses, holding tight so that he cannot push her back, but instead he draws her closer. They part briefly for breath as she falls into his lap, legs and skirts on either side of his thighs before he is pulling her in again, mouth open and eager. His hands are more sure now but no less gentle as they smooth over her back, squeezing softly at the nape of her neck before threading through her hair almost reverently. She moans softly when he moves his mouth to her neck, and when she presses closer she can feel the swell of his cock between her legs, through his breeches and her smallclothes, and instinctively she rolls her hips hard against him. 

He growls against the curve of her neck and shoulder, and his hands go back to her hips as she does it again, moaning sharply and using his shoulders as leverage. He kisses to her collarbone, breathing her name against her skin, and it is the first time he calls her _Cat_ and whatever distance of propriety they had struggled to maintain seems to dissipate completely. His hand comes up to cup her breast through her bodice, running his thumb over the nipple and the brush of the material of her gown over the sensitive tips quickly hardens them. 

It is a heady feeling completely apart from the wine they had shared, the realization that she would dishonor herself for him if he asked, give herself completely and as she blazes a trail from his jaw back to his mouth, warm and inviting, rocking her hips against his own, she wishes desperately that he would do so. 

But she knows that he would never ask such a thing, and perhaps it is better that way, that they continue to skate the lines of betrayal, moving closer and closer but not daring to cross what cannot be taken back, to continue to pretend that there is nothing wayward about this.

She reaches for the laces of his breeches and she feels his sharp intake of apprehension against her lips, and his moan of appreciation when her fingers wrap around him. She strokes him with light fingers at first, sliding along the soft skin, learning the shape of him, and he moves his mouth back to her neck, careful to use lips and tongue but not teeth, nothing that could leave a mark on her pale skin though she almost wishes he would, and if Brandon saw then at least he would know that someone desired her, even if he no longer did. 

She quickens her strokes and watches Ned’s face tense, and the ache between her legs is almost unbearable as she watches him, the desire to have him there and not just in her hand. With trembling fingers she reaches with her free hand for his, sliding it beneath her skirts and despite the haze of pleasure he understands. He lets out a groan to find her damp through her smallclothes, and she cries out when he slides his hand beneath them, sliding his fingers along her outer folds before softly pushing between them, thumb stroking over her nub. His fingers are calloused and less practiced than Brandon’s and her breath hitches at the surge of arousal that brings, that she is more than just another conquest to boast of (albeit one whom had a cloak of Stark grey and white draped across her shoulders). 

Her head falls back when he slides his fingers inside her, curling them up to stroke her, and he grunts as she tugs too hard. She strokes the underside of his cock gently as an apology before resuming her pace, rocking against his fingers in tempo as he twists them deliciously inside her. 

His breath is hot when he gasps against her neck as she drives him closer to the edge, and his fingers still inside her, forgetting their purpose as she rubs her thumb over the tip of his cock. He pants her name again when he spills in her hand, and she kisses him when he tilts his face up to look at her. 

Ned pulls his fingers from within her and she aches at their loss as he gently wipes his seed off her hand with the underside of his shirt. And then he is lifting her from his lap, and she holds to him as he coaxes her backwards onto the scratchy rug before the fireplace. Her breath hitches and thoughts of lines that should not be passed fly from her mind as her legs fall open for him as easily as any wanton girl in a brothel. But instead of moving on top of her, he disentangles her arms from around his neck, leaning back to look at her flush and aroused and willing, his eyes dark with wanting. He runs his hands along her sides, the sides of her breasts, the curve of her waist, the swell of her hips, and then he is pulling her skirt and shift up, easing her smallclothes down her thighs. 

Her cry is as much of surprise as it is pleasure when he moves his mouth between her legs, tongue brushing over where his fingers had been. His beard prickles against her inner thighs and the rug burns into her elbows as she pushes her hips up against him and he presses back harder in response. His mouth and tongue are hot against her and his fingers are warm when he replaces them to work in tandem, and she can almost laugh as she remembers that she once thought him _cold_ if she were not instead moaning under his ministrations. It is something Brandon did once, at the beginning, but she could tell he found the act distasteful and so she had not asked again and he had not offered. Ned is thorough in a way that his brother was not, running his tongue over her entrance, kissing her nub before wrapping his mouth around it, and she clutches her fingers desperately in his hair. 

She muffles the loud shout when she reaches her peak against her palm, thighs trembling as he licks into her through the waves of her pleasure. He pulls back when she is spent and looks at her, and there is a question, a hint of doubt in his eyes and she tugs gently with the hand in his hair so that he leans forward to kiss her. She can taste herself on his mouth and she feels a pleasing twinge, an aftershock, between her legs at the thought, at the proof that she had not imagined it. 

He rests his head on her stomach and she twines her fingers through his own, sleepy and sated before the fire, and she wonders if satisfaction always comes at the heels of dishonor. 

“I am sorry,” he murmurs against her, and she imagines she can feel the warmth of his mouth through her dress and shift, and she wonders who he is apologizing to, for what misdeed – to her, to her brother, to his newly named betrothed? She feels a twinge of sorrow at the thought – Ned is not as his brother, and will not leave his wife alone and embarrassed and shamed before others to court another woman, and she may love him for it but she will also lose him for it, and she curls her fingers possessively in his hair. She has no right to her jealousy, she knows, but she cannot help but wish that things had been different, cannot help the ache that he will be a good husband to another woman. 

“Are you?” she asks softly, and he tilts his face up to look at her, and if there are a thousand emotions in his eyes, regret does not seem to be one of them. _Because I am not_ , she thinks.


End file.
